Election staff to complete incomplete ballots?

By Courtney Trenwith

Informal voters could have their incomplete voting ballots filled out by electoral commission staff under a controversial new proposal for federal elections.

The move could have a major impact on Queensland contests, due to the state's high informal vote rate.

Preference deals between parties would become more critical under proposed electoral changes.Credit:Paul Harris

The chairman of the parliamentary committee examining last year's high number of informal votes, federal Labor MP Daryl Melham, wants to introduce a "safety net" to halve the number of votes deemed informal in federal elections.

Mr Melham will recommend the government adopt a provision of South Australia's electoral laws introduced in 1984 that allows incomplete ballot papers to be filled in by electoral commission staff when the voter's intention is clear.

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Under the provision, ballots with the voter's first preference marked would be completed according to that candidate's how-to-vote card, making preference deals between candidates more powerful.

At a federal level, it could potentially see an additional 400,000 votes, or up to 60 per cent of invalid ballot papers, be counted.

The change would likely have significant impacts in New South Wales and Queensland, where high numbers of informal votes are recorded, presumably because those state electoral systems differ from the federal system.

The Australian Electoral Commission says 137,395 informal votes were found among ballot papers in Queensland last year, representing almost 5.45 per cent of all votes counted.

Queensland University of Technology political expert Clive Bean said the move would "almost certainly" mean more Queenslanders would have their say at a federal election.

Professor Bean said the "safety net" could have changed the outcome of several closely fought Queensland federal seats at the 2010 election, which may have had major implications for the hung parliament.

"It could have meant that various seats went [the other] way," he said.

"Whether that would have made a big difference to the outcome in the end ... is something you would have to ... calculate. It may have made the outcome different [and] shored up Labor's position.

"Even quite small changes to electoral systems do result in the potential for outcomes to be different ... [particularly] when elections are very tight."

Queensland has been among the states with the highest number of informal votes for the previous four federal elections. The prevalence of informal ballot papers rose sharply last year, from 3.56 per cent at the 2007 election to 5.45 per cent in 2010.

Some of that was put down to disillusionment with the major parties.

Mr Melham said Queensland voters also appeared to confuse the state and federal voting systems.

In state elections, voters can simply mark a cross, tick or write the number one in the box next to their preferred candidate's name and leave the rest of the paper blank.

In the federal system, that same method can be applied for the Senate but not for the House of Representatives, which requires a number in each box in order of preference.

Mr Melham said the proposed provision would not change the electoral system but provide a "safety net" when voters failed to complete their preferences but had clearly indicated their first preference.

He expected some to object to the provision being added.

"[The South Australian provision] has been in operation for 26 years without any scandal," Mr Melham said.

"It's not a rort, we've got to have a safety net. I'm seeing all these wasted votes of people trying to vote and being knocked out on technicality."